Well guys, now that UBW is over, this is the moment that I’m stepping down and putting my fansubbing adventures on the shelf. I’ve been fansubbing since mid-late 2009, and it’s now about 6 years later. I guess all good things must come to an end. My first show was Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood with Tomodachi.

I haven’t really found fansubbing fun for a while now, but together with the guys who worked on UBW we managed to get through it. We’ll still be doing the Blu-rays in october’ish but this will be the last release I officially work on. I’ve been running UTW for over a year now, and besides some other guy, I’m the last original staffer left. Well that’s not true actually, UTW has pretty much always run itself, even when Raze was around, though he managed to get stuff done more often than not.

My reason for retiring is as mentioned above, as well as my spare time being put towards studying these days. I’m doing a Bachelor of Animation, for whatever that’s worth. It’s kinda fun, but the amount of homework is kinda killing me because I like my free time, and well I don’t have a huge amount of it these days. But that’s where my focus will be these days, and people can still find me on Rizon if they need me. I’ve been on IRC way too long to leave it now, it’s a part of me I guess you could say.

I’ve pretty much done most jobs in my fansubbing career, besides translating of course, but I mostly focused on encoding and typesetting, with a bit of timing/karaoke stuff when I had to. I’ve done other things too, but they’ll only be known to the people that know them. I’ve seen things change dramatically and well for the most part streaming companies do an OK job, not great, but OK. I’m glad to see this is the case at least, because when I first started, I had hoped that one day we’d see legal subs that are extremely accessible. We have that today, and so I feel I can sit back now and know that there is at least some alternative out there.

I can’t tell you what is happening with Cinderella Girls, but I do know that hopefully it’ll be done. That’s all I can say really.

And well to everyone who has supported me over the years, I guess a thanks is in order, so thanks guys. And to all my friends I’ve made fansubbing who’re no longer around, I had a great time guys, pop in and say hi someday.

What’s over is over though, and I’ll never forget the good times that I had, so thanks to all the guys I’ve worked with over the years, you’ve really made it fun.

In memory of Raze and those lost before us, this will be our project epilogue.

Xythar(Editor/QC/CEO): It’s been a long road, but I’m glad we were able to give UTW the sendoff (and UBW the subs) it deserved. Big thanks to the team for sticking with it and catching back up despite delays, and extra special thanks to our unnamed TLC without whom none of this would have happened. (And double-extra-special thanks to them for putting up with my incessant nagging over the last ten months!) As things are winding down at UTW and I’m concentrating more on my own group, Vivid, this will likely be the last show I work on here – but it’s been a lot of fun.ヒミツ(TLC/Chief Staller): No response. It’s just a corpse.KmE(Timer): Tohsaka mai waifuar(Encoder/Titlesetter): ufotable Luvia is love.

Naturally, there are good reasons apart from health and global climate change to refrain from consuming animal products. And by consuming, I mean purchasing or using as well as eating. When you purchase, use, or eat any kind of animal products, you support the barbaric and unethical practice of animal husbandry.

There is one great rule, taught by all religions, and embraced by all philosophies, secular or not. We see it in the Mahabharata, the Dao De Jing, Leviticus, the Talmud, the Analects, the words of Mohammed and the Greek and Roman philosophers, the works of the existential philosophers. It is likely best known to our audience as it is written in Luke 6:31 (NABRE):

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Animals feel pain. When you kick a dog, the dog will wince and whine, run away, and cower in fear—supposing it survives. You know the pain the dog feels, and you wouldn’t want to experience the same pain—or die. Always keep this Golden Rule in mind.

At the time of this writing, 60 billion animals are raised each year for food. That is ten times the world’s human population. In the United States alone, 9 billion chickens are killed each year. How is it possible to raise so many animals solely for human consumption? A disgusting “miracle” known as factory farming. Let’s take a look at a small sampling of the abusive practices involved.

Mulesing

Australian wool sheep have been bred to have extra-flappy skin, to increase the amount of wool produced per sheep. The extra weight of the wool causes sheep to collapse and even die during the hot summer months. Urine and fecal matter collect in the flaps, making the sheep susceptible to flies laying eggs in the flaps. When the fly eggs hatch, the maggots eat the sheep alive. To prevent this, sheep farmers practice “mulesing.”

In mulesing, sheep are strapped, legs up, on steel racks, and large chunks of flesh about the sheep’s anus and vulva are carved away. To keep the costs of the procedure low, farmers do not administer anesthetic, resulting in an extremely painful procedure for the animals. Ironically, the procedure is ineffective. Flies tend to lay eggs in the open wounds, which sometimes makes the procedure worse for the sheep. It is only used because it is cheaper than all alternatives that are more effective.

Before you put on or purchase another pair of wool socks, think about the sheep subjected to this torture. Would you like to have large chunks of flesh about your anus and/or vulva carved away while you are fully awake and unanesthetized? Well, that’s what you just did to a poor sheep, you insensitive clod.

Chick Sexing

The name sounds humorous, but the practice of “chick sexing” is barbaric, unethical, inhumane, and disgusting. Because they are able to produce eggs, female chickens are more valuable than male cocks. Chick sexing is the process of separating female chickens from male cocks as early as possible, before sex characteristics even begin showing.

The process is simple: a chick sexer picks up a chick, squeezes the chick to forcibly eject fecal matter from the chick’s anal vent, and then stares up the chick’s anal vent. If the chick sexer finds a bump inside the chick’s anal vent, the chick is male; if there is no bump, the chick is female. To confirm if the chick is male, the chick sexer will stick his or her inch-thick thumb into the chick’s millimeter-wide anal vent and rub the bump.

On egg-producing farms, only the female chickens are desired. The male cocks are immediately killed so as not to burden the farm financially. The male cocks are forced through meat grinders, alive and chirping for sweet mercy. Factory farms practice sexual discrimination at its worst—one sex is discriminately killed, while the other is forced to live a life of misery.

Female chickens are raised in cages so small that they are unable to move, with one gap for the head and one gap to let eggs out. Naturally, some chickens are unable to bear this stress, and will often peck themselves and other chickens to death. To prevent the death pecks of madness, farmers will debeak the surviving sexed chicks by chopping off the beak with a hot blade, searing the wound shut. A chicken’s beak is extremely sensitive—this operation can be compared to “female circumcision,” in which a human woman’s genitals are mutilated.

The next time you think about cracking an egg, remember all the cocks died to produce the egg. Remember the chickens living in tiny cages with their erogenous beaks removed. Remember all the pain and suffering and death that you have caused by wanting to eat an egg. You disgust me, you murderer, you castrator, you discriminator, you asshole.

Castration

Lambs are castrated for two reasons. First, it allows breeders to raise male and female lambs together without fear of a Billie Jean moment. Second, wether (castrated) lambs are easier to slaughter for better quality meat than ram (uncastrated) lambs.

There are three methods for castrating ram lambs: surgery, elastrator, and emasculator.

Lamb castrating surgery is less surgery and more an act of violence. It is a two-person job. One person holds the lambs legs apart. The other person places a bucket to the side of the lamb, pulls out a knife, slashes off part of the lamb’s scrotum, pushes the testicles out of the scrotum with his or her hands, bites the exposed testicles with his or her teeth, and tears them out with a swift jerk of the head, dumping the testicles into the bucket. The wound is then closed and the lamb released.

An elastrator is a small, but strong, rubber band about the size of an orthodontic elastic. The castrator places the elastrator on a metal tool, which opens the elastrator to a reasonable size, places the band around the lamb’s scrotum, and releases the elastrator from the tool. The deathgrip of the elastrator on the scrotum cuts off blood flow, and in a week, the scrotum will atrophy and fall cleanly off the poor lamb. During this week, the lamb is seen to be distraught and unable to function due to pain. The lamb will not be able to stand over the pain of scrotal constriction, collapsing several times as it cowers and retreats into a corner of the barn to lie down. In wretched agony.

An emasculator is a tool which crushes the spermatic cords and blood vessels in and around the testicles, often destroying the testicles in the process. The emasculator is placed around the lamb’s scrotum and given a squeeze. The lamb’s testicles are instantly crushed. For the males in the audience, this is like being bound and your scrotum placed on the concrete sidewalk, before someone raises his or her foot and stomps down, trampling your testicles underfoot and grinding them into a bloody pulp.

The next time you do anything involving sheep, remember the wether lambs. Imagine being male and having your scrotum being cut open while someone rips your testicles out with his or her teeth. Imagine being male and having an orthodontic elastic strapped around your scrotum and left there so that your testicles will simply fall off, and the week spent in deathly agony. Imagine being male and having your testicles crushed on a sidewalk under a merciless heel.

If you still want sheep products after reading this, you are scum. You deserve to experience all the pain of all the animals raised for human consumption. You deserve to die.

A Final Word

Naturally, while the described practices are primarily performed at factory farms, even “organic” and “free range” animal farms are barbaric and unethical as well. They still raise animals for abuse and slaughter. The final solution is not to switch to some other form of barbarism, but to end the barbarism altogether. End your consumption and use of all animal products.